


A Moment to Be

by Jade_Waters



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 03:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18229460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Waters/pseuds/Jade_Waters
Summary: Keeping up morale in this never-ending war is too much sometimes. Jazz just needs a moment to be.





	A Moment to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't managed to finish & post a new fic in so long I just wanted to let y'all know I'm not dead. Life's just busy.
> 
> I posted this little fic a long time ago in a different archive. Please enjoy!

Rain moved white through the search lights like static.  On the other side of the volcano, Autobots called out, “Jazz!  Where are you, Jazz?”

But for tonight, they would not find him.  Just tonight.  That’s all he wanted – tonight, alone, lost in the quiet rain. 

Jazz snuck around to the back side of the volcano, sliding through shadows, unworried about metallic reflections as clouds covered the moon and left the night black.  The rain poured down in sheets, and lightning flashed in the distance now and then.  He could still hear the faint echoes of his friends between the waves of thunder rocking and rolling across the sky.  But he was moving away from the cone now, walking so the sound of his engine wouldn’t drift to a lucky Autobot’s audios. 

For half a megacycle, Jazz walked, aimless and unthinking, before he just stopped and sat down.

The rain pattered off his metal shoulders, creating a surprisingly soft, calming sound in its steadiness.  He shuttered his optics as he listened to it, teasing out the melodies.  Earth could be such a gentle place sometimes.  So vibrant, even on a starless night.  He could smell plants bursting to life.  He could sense animals tucked under brush and rocks.  Their tiny heat signatures sung like single music notes bumping into his sensors, as if someone were plucking at a guitar for the first time.  The animals were likely eager for the rain to stop.  But Jazz did not want the rain to stop.  He knew it would – probably soon, too – but its soft music was the only thing keeping him together.  He just… couldn’t keep doing this.  Smiling and laughing and joking and keeping everyone else happy all the time through so many near-deaths and almost-tragedies and…

They’d all looked at him.  When lil ‘Bee was brought in with his circuits hanging out from his side, they’d all just stared at him, waiting for him to make them feel better, to make them forget their friend could be dying.  He knew it was his job – his duty, really – to keep up morale, to say Bee was gonna be fine like always.  He knew it even as something in his processor froze up. 

But knowing didn’t stop him from turning tail and running out of that room, out of the Ark with surprised and worried ‘Bots chasing after him, calling for him to wait. 

Once he started running he couldn’t stop, and after a few clicks his processor caught up to his body and he knew he didn’t want to stop, so he kept going.  He’d run straight at first, but when he saw the search lights from the Ark, he’d decided to stop and circle back, to hide instead of simply running.  He’d walked until he didn’t want to anymore.  He’d felt so weary – so Spark-deep weary – that when he sat down he wasn’t sure if he was sitting or collapsing. 

Then, Jazz just listened to the rain until it slowed, softened, stopped.  Bumblebee would be okay.  Ratchet was the best.  Jazz knew that.  But this one time, he’d wanted (needed, maybe) somebody _else_ to tell him that instead of him humming the same old tune for everyone else’s comfort.  Or maybe he’d just wanted to be alone, to be allowed to worry on his own, to just let it go and forget for a nanoclick… for one single second not to have any part in any war anywhere in the universe and be allowed to just be. 

The rain and clouds moved away. 

Cycling the clean air through his systems felt refreshing.  Jazz stood up and looked around.  Time to go back to base – he’d been AWOL over three megacycles, and the sun was about to start coming up.  Prime was going to blow a gasket.  Hopefully not literally, since then Ratchet would also want to peel his paint off in strips. 

The sky lightened from night-black to deep blue, and by the time Jazz was giving the volcano a wide sweep in order to come around from the front, the East was near-white with its anticipation for the sun. 

Jazz walked up the Ark’s driveway, smiling tiredly and waving as he saw a certain black-and-white mech leaning just inside, watching him approach.  Instead of the frown Jazz expected, Prowl smiled the tiniest of smiles, showing he understood.  The sun broke the horizon like a saxophone breaks silence, shining off the golden Ark, bright as a new Spark, just as Prowl stepped forward. 

Jazz passed him, and Prowl left his night-long vigil to follow.  “Better?” he asked in his rain-soft voice. 

Jazz smiled his own smile – this one just for Prowl, not the masses – and said, “Yeah, Prowl, just needed some time alone.” 

Prowl nodded, sliding him a look that reminded Jazz of a slow cello solo and asked him to please, _please_ , let him know next time that he was safe, once he got to wherever he was running.  Jazz gave the tactician an apologetic grin as they stopped walking.  He suddenly realized where they’d stopped – the Med Bay.  He glanced over at Prowl, a question in his eyes. 

Prowl smiled again and rested his hand on Jazz’s shoulder, “Go on, you’ve got a friend waiting to see you.” 

Jazz smiled like a full-blown rock concert and danced through the door.

 

-Fin-


End file.
